Stop stomping on our rights

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The Bracks Government will need more than a charter to overcome
its reputation for trampling on civil rights.

Suggestions that Attorney-General Robert Hulls is calling for
debate about introducing a charter of rights in Victoria, revealed
in last weekend's Sunday Age, are welcome. But civil
libertarians' complaints about the Government are many and
troubling.

· Suspects or even bystanders to organised crime can now
be jailed for refusing to answer questions - reversing the
long-accepted principle of the right to silence - in changes to the
Crime Act last year. This prompted Liberty Victoria to warn of a
"police state" in Victoria. Former president Greg Connellan
declared: "The creeping acceptance of government coercion within
the justice system will be very damaging to the security and rights
of every Victorian."

· Injured workers' rights to sue for personal injury have
been limited. Among the changes, workers are no longer allowed to
sue for diseases that take more than 12 years to develop - so when
new occupational diseases with delayed onset arise in the same way
as asbestosis, workers will no longer have the right to sue.
(Asbestos and tobacco-related illnesses are exempt.)

· A respected teacher who admitted to consensually
touching his underage girlfriend's breasts when he was 20 - before
he had even studied to be a teacher - was axed from his chosen
profession. The law against sexual offenders working as teachers
allows for no shades of grey. Commonplace canoodling among hormonal
teenagers and young adults is treated no differently to pedophilia.
How many politicians can declare their hands clean on earlier
sexual behaviour?

When judged as a whole, these and other rights infringements
have harmed the Government's reputation and outweighed the more
positive developments: the introduction of Koori courts; the
removal of legal discrimination against same-sex couples; and
closing the loophole allowing 16 and 17-year-olds from working in
R-rated films, to name a few. In these areas, reform has progressed
methodically without the knee-jerk reactions prompted by negative
publicity.

Liberty Victoria warned of a 'police state'

But even the introduction of racial and religious vilification
laws, ostensibly to prevent discrimination, raises serious concerns
about freedom of speech.

One disillusioned Labor supporter lamented privately this week
that this Government had been responsible for cutting back more
rights than any of its Labor predecessors. While his point might be
arguable, the sentiment is quite broadly felt among Labor members
and supporters. Just as most of the federal Liberal Party's
libertarian wing has been largely missing in action over the vexed
issue of detention, at least publicly, so too have Labor's
libertarians avoided significant external debate about the
implications of the organised crime bill and other legal
changes.

If further proof were needed to illustrate the weakness of
government MPs, the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee,
whose job it is to determine the human rights implications of new
laws, this week averted its gaze from the contentious plan to
appoint part-time judges. The majority Labor committee rejected the
Opposition's call to consider the legal profession's concerns that
part-time judges would feel beholden to government.

A charter of rights would be the most active expression of
support for human rights this Government could give, even if it
were a simple checklist.

If it follows the new ACT model - the only Australian government
to have such a charter - it would require an explicit recognition
of the rights implications of new legislation, during drafting. If
a law were to restrict rights in any way, this would have to be
justified. Civil libertarians hope that a charter would have been
able to prevent some of the worst encroachments on rights seen
recently, by forcing the Government to acknowledge such
ramifications.

At the moment, this is only formally considered by a government
committee, whose findings can easily be ignored.

A charter would mean human rights were considered in every
legislative step of government.

But in the end it will still be up to cabinet to determine
whether its commitment to rights ranks ahead of populism. Otherwise
a charter represents no more than hollow words.